John Cranko

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Eva Zippel : portrait drawing by John Cranko, 1965

John Cyril Cranko (born August 15, 1927 in Rustenburg , South Africa , † June 26, 1973 on a return flight from the USA) was a British dance director and choreographer . From 1961 he was director of the Stuttgart Ballet , which he made into one of the leading ballet companies in the world within a few years .

Gravestone in the Solitude cemetery in Stuttgart

Life

Cranko first studied in Cape Town . In 1946 he went to London and became a member of Sadler's Wells Theater Ballet . His productions were characterized by a clear, dramatic structure. In 1947 he created a sensational choreography for Debussy's Children's Corner for Sadler's Wells Ballet .

Cranko had his first major successes with this group in 1949 with Beauty and the Beast , and in 1951 with Pineapple Poll and Harlequin in April . In 1955 he choreographed La Belle Hélène for the Paris Opera . He had his first full-length English ballet performance in 1957 with The Pagoda Prince . In 1961 Cranko was appointed director of the Stuttgart Ballet by Walter Erich Schäfer . He gathered a group of gifted dancers around him, including Marcia Haydée , Egon Madsen , Richard Cragun , Birgit Keil and Susanne Hanke .

Some of his choreographies in Stuttgart were Romeo and Juliet after William Shakespeare in 1962, and Onegin after Alexander Pushkin in 1965 . The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare followed in 1969, Brouillards in 1970 , Carmen in 1971 (with music by Wolfgang Fortner and Wilfried Steinbrenner), and finally in 1973 traces . Cranko's choreographies made a major contribution to the so-called “Stuttgart ballet miracle”, which began in 1969 with a guest performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Telling stories in a nuanced way, his clear dramatic structures and the extraordinary manner in which he mastered the art of the pas de deux conquered the audience in New York . In 1971 he founded a ballet school with boarding school in Stuttgart. Today the John Cranko School is the ballet school of the Württemberg State Theater as well as a vocational school and state ballet academy.

John Cranko died on June 26, 1973 while flying back from a successful US tour to Dublin. His grave is in the small cemetery near Solitude Palace (Stuttgart). To celebrate its 80th birthday in August 2007, the Stuttgart Ballet organized the Cranko Festival 2007 , a series of events in Stuttgart. The John Cranko Society is named after him.

As a choreologist and ballet master, Georgette Tsinguirides has meanwhile passed on Cranko's work to several generations of dancers: Not only with the Stuttgart Ballet, but also with more than 30 other ballet companies worldwide . She recorded all the great works that Cranko created in Stuttgart in a specific dance script, the Benesh Movement Notation .

In April 2020, the novel by Thomas Aders Soul Dance - John Cranko and the Stuttgart Ballet Wonder was published as a podcast . In 27 episodes, the life of John Cranko is presented, for which the author evaluated the personal memories of dozens of contemporary witnesses, including those of the main dancer John Cranko.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ website to the podcast "SOUL DANCE - John Cranko and the Stuttgart Ballet Miracle". Retrieved May 27, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Cranko, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cranko, John Cyril (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British choreographer and dance director
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Rustenburg , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1973
Place of death on a return flight from the USA